Wolfspell, a project I’m illustrating, is on Kickstarter right now, but only until the evening of February 3rd! I want to share a little of what makes this project feel special to me.

Wolfspell is a tabletop roleplaying game by Epidiah Ravachol, whose name you might know from the epic storytelling game Swords Without Master, or the Jenga-powered horror game Dread. Epidiah’s Wolfspell is a game where you tell the stories of rogues, adventurers, warriors and travelers who have been turned into wolves and must achieve their vengeance, source their treasure, or escape their fate as wolves before they can return to their human forms.

As a player in Wolfspell, you are torn between your wolf side and your human side, pitting a wolf die against a blood die on every roll. Working as a pack will keep you safest; a lone wolf might not survive to tell their tale.

As the GM in Wolfspell you are called Winter, and you bring your wrath down on those who have earned it through failed rolls and dangerous choices, while you add challenges, magic and snow to your players’ story.

This game feels epic and haunting to play; communicating through the language and senses of wolves adds a flavour of strangeness and surprise to already solid sword and sorcery tales. As a sword and sorcery fan, and a person who is deeply interested in animal intelligence and communication, this game would have my number no matter what!

But it’s not just that I’m excited for it to exist – it’s not even just that I’m excited that I get to illustrate the cover! It’s extra, extra special because Epidiah had decided that we are going to publish this game as a tri-fold LP case.

(the art is not finished, stay tuned to see the polished final image!)

You know, the sort of thing you might find holding a double album, back in the days of vinyl. Specifically, the format that gave us some of the most definitive examples of epic magical realism in illustration. The sort of enormous canvas given to folks like Roger Dean and Rodney Matthews. I’m going to be painting one of those!

I’m a sucker for finding musical parallels to other things I enjoy, so using the format to draw a line between this wonderful RPG and the experience of an epic double album just gives me goosebumps!

If all this has you intrigued, don’t delay – check out the Wolfspell kickstarter right here!

And if you’re already a fan of wolves and epic music, let me know below what songs or albums you’ll put on when you play Wolfspell!